


Objet d'Art

by branwyn



Series: Harold and Grace [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Boundary Issues, F/M, Foreboding, Grace backstory, Harold POV, Harold is just a simple art lover, I will make everyone in this fandom as in love with Grace as Harold and I are, Surveillance, angsty fluff, arguably there could be more self-awareness but trace amounts are detectable, fretful pining, he thinks Grace is a work of art and he loves her, self-awareness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: Harold feels deeply unworthy of his patch of sunshine.
Relationships: Harold Finch/Grace Hendricks
Series: Harold and Grace [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638700
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Objet d'Art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/gifts).



> This story takes place between Harold's first introducing himself to Grace in January of 2006, and the scavenger hunt he organized for her birthday in April of 2006.

Harold is going to develop an anxiety disorder because of Grace Hendricks.

Oh, it’s not her fault. There is nothing inherently anxiety-provoking about Grace or her company. Quite the contrary: Harold feels uniquely, blissfully safe around her. That’s just the problem. He relaxes in her presence like a cat in possession of a sunny patch of carpet. In his life, too much relaxation isn’t wise. It leads to careless mistakes, which can lead not at all hypothetically to disaster.

There is also the fact that Harold feels deeply unworthy of his patch of sunshine, and is selfishly terrified that the universe, or karma, or what have you, will snatch her away from him. 

He’s a criminal in hiding, after all. And he’s had two years and a _lot_ of background information to help him make up his mind about this woman. As if she were a movie star, and he a devoted fan who’d collected all her magazine interviews. Only, unlike a movie star, Grace hasn’t the least notion that anyone might be combing through her life with so much attention. She thinks Harold is an eccentric art lover who’d felt drawn to admire her painting in the park and stumbled from there into inviting her to coffee. 

Telling her the truth is impossible. _Not_ telling her makes Harold feel like he’s one step above the trench coat flashers in Central Park. 

He probably deserves to lose her. The trouble is, he already doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He’s bad at denying himself, and exceptionally good at evading consequences.

So it’s fair to say he’s reached a bit of an impasse with himself.

Today is his fourth coffee date with Grace since they met—that is, since he _introduced himself_ to her in early January. It’s not even February 1st yet. Harold hasn’t even worked up the nerve to escalate to a dinner invitation, and at the same time he can’t seem to go more than five days without asking to see her again. 

He’s never been a wreck over a woman before. Nor a man, come to that. His only dates since college have been perfunctory affairs, securing elegant companionship for an evening of social obligation. Nathan has always provided Harold with all he could desire of friendship and emotional intimacy. 

Nathan, dear as he is, has never made Harold’s hands sweat. 

Every time Harold walks through the door of a cafe, or looks up from a restaurant table and sees Grace smiling at him from across the room, it’s like taking a hit of some marvelous drug, only better. Natural highs peak slower and last longer.

This particular afternoon, Grace’s hair is a soft tumble of waves around her small, glowing face. She’s wearing a dark sapphire blue shirt that contrasts dramatically with the deep auburn of her hair. The small, perfect ovals of her nails are painted in an unexpected shade of teal. She isn’t wearing jewelry or makeup that Harold notices—not that he would notice, necessarily. It’s difficult to take in many details when the overall effect is so dazzling.

“Hi,” he says, inadequately, bending to kiss her cheek and take his seat. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I was afraid I’d be really early, so I started doing something and lost track of the time.”

“Oh, are you me?” she laughs, eyes lighting up. “That sounds just like something I’d do.”

His cheeks are already beginning to hurt from smiling. “Have you ordered yet?”

“No, but I always get the same thing here. Take your time.”

Harold also gets the same thing, no matter where he’s ordering, but he pretends to study the menu as a cover for studying Grace. 

He knows everything about her that can be learned via digital record-keeping. Her life still makes little sense to him. If she were desperately sad or angry, or simply broken somehow, Harold could perhaps understand how it is that so few people seem to know her. But Grace is radiant with joy, like she swallowed a small sun. He has no idea how people—other than him, that is, socially adventurous people, say—don’t fall over themselves with eagerness to speak to her, draw her out of her reclusion. 

He really doesn’t think he’s ever met a more extraordinary person. And billionaires, even billionaires who hide behind their tall, blonde business partners, meet a great many extraordinary people. Harold has basis for comparison. But apart from Harold, she sees no one except the children at the shelter where she volunteers twice a month, and a small circle of artists and writers who meet for coffee Thursday mornings.

That she is beautiful goes without saying. This is Manhattan, where the beautiful come to spend their social currency, and the affluent spend their currency on beauty, but even in such rarefied company Grace’s beauty is remarkable, unique. She makes him think of Faberge eggs and cloisonne pins, jewel-like objets d’art that are coveted because of the exquisite attention to detail with which they are crafted. 

“If you’re having trouble making up your mind,” she says, drawing his attention to how long he’s been dallying, “then I recommend the honey macchiato. And they do really good almond croissants here.”

“I’ll trust your authority for that, since I never baked anything in my life that didn’t become charcoal in the process. How are your own croissant-making experiments coming along?”

“Oh, I gave up. Admitted defeat. I’ve moved on to new kitchen experiments. That reminds me!” She takes her pocket book from the table and rummages for a moment. “Do you like citrus fruits?”

“Do I—well, yes, certainly—”

“Good, because I brought you candied fruit peels.”

“You what?” says Harold, even as he holds his hand out to receive what she’s giving him: a small plastic bag, closed at the top with a white ribbon covered in blue dots.

“Candied fruit peels. That was my project this week. There’s a mix of orange, lemon, lime, and grapefruit. It’s okay if you don’t like them, but I ended up making so many—”

“I’m certain I’ll enjoy them immensely,” he says, because he hears a faintly anxious note in her voice, and he’s afraid she’s going to say something self-deprecating. Every time Grace gives that little laugh and says things like, “Don’t listen to me” or “That must sound silly,” Harold feels it like a sharp, tiny needle in his heart. 

“I grew up in South Carolina,” she says. Harold almost nods before he realizes that she hasn’t told him this before. “And my grandparents lived in Florida when I was a kid. There was a tiny orchard in my Mee-maw’s back yard. White grapefruit, red grapefruit, oranges, tangerines, avocado, mango, bananas, all crammed into this tiny space.”

“Good heavens,” says Harold, transported by this vision. “Did she sell the fruit, or was her appetite equal to the bounty?”

“Oh, no, it was _such_ a pain in the butt. You couldn’t keep up with it. Mostly it just fell off the branches until the grandkids came to visit, then she’d send us out with garbage bags just to get it off the ground before it started rotting. _So_ many wasps and yellow-jackets. But then you’d get a box of the good stuff and she’d let you sell it to the neighbors. Just about everyone who lived around there had their own trees, but they humored us.”

Harold can’t seem to tear his eyes away from her mouth, or the gentle smile it’s shaping. “Sounds like an idyllic way for a child to spend a summer.”

The smile falters, just the tiniest bit. Harold’s heart skips a beat, but she plunges on.

“Anyway, around this time of year—you know, January, February, when everyone’s just doing their best to slog through the end of winter, I eat a lot of oranges and grapefruit. It’s silly, but I feel like I’m eating sunshine. Good for the winter blahs.”

Harold touches the small, cheerfully wrapped bag of sweets she’s given him. 

He thinks he’s put his finger on what is so unique, to him, about Grace Hendricks. Comparing her to exquisitely crafted works of art misses the point, because she is also the craftswoman. 

On their first date she’d explained to him that in her work she tried to reflect the beauty she saw in the world around her. Harold thinks it must take something much rarer even than artistic ability to work so hard at diffusing one’s own beauty into the world in so many small, seemingly casual ways.

“Goodness, I still haven’t ordered,” he says, catching himself. “We’re squatting on Manhattan real estate. They’ll run us out on a rail.”

“Green tea, one sugar, and a croquillant?” Harold gapes at her, and she grins. “This is our fourth date, Harold. You’re not the only one who can pay attention. Sit tight, I’ll go get it.”

She’s up and away before Harold can even attempt to be chivalrous. Alone, he picks up the plastic bag full of sugared fruit peels and bites into a strip of lemon, not sure what to expect. 

The platonic essence of a lemon seems to burst across his palette, without the jaw-locking sourness of the fruit itself. Harold’s eyes flicker shut. For a second, winter does indeed seem very far away.

When Grace returns, carrying both drinks and two pastries in bags, Harold thanks her. She hands him a single sugar packet, then looks away pointedly, as if pained by his tea-drinking habits. He smirks, feeling pleasantly teased.

Suddenly, the anxiety simmering in his stomach before he sat down with her stirs up again. She does pay attention to him. She just doesn’t show off what she’s noticed, the way he does. There’s a danger in that, for someone like Harold. He’s Hamlet’s inverse, the observer of all that is observed, with the result that he’s not always aware of his own patterns. If this intimacy with Grace continues—and he wants it to, quite desperately—she will inevitably see more than he intends to show her. 

“Grace,” he says quietly. “I feel I should say—that is, you may come to notice that I don’t really talk very much about my own past. I hope you understand that it’s not from any mistrust, nor a lack of desire to include you in my life.” 

“I didn’t think that,” she says, unwrapping her croissant. “We’ve had coffee four times in three weeks, mister. I’m feeling pretty included.” 

He blushes. 

“I don’t talk about everything in my past either,” she says, shrugging, not looking at him. “Facts aren’t the same as truths.”

Harold catches his breath like he’s been hit in the stomach. _How can she be so perfect,_ he thinks. And then, when he can think through the haze of his deepening infatuation: _What makes her think she knows anything about secrets?_

“I tried the lemon peels,” he offers, when he trusts himself to speak normally. “They’re exquisite. Amid your many other talents, it seems you’re a sublime confectioner.”

Grace beams at him, and Harold basks.

**Author's Note:**

> [candied lemon peel recipe](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/candied-lemon-peels-232352)
> 
> [Faberge egg](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B72UcT6VoMM/Tjq0HQ0MJ6I/AAAAAAAAAQ4/XF5LruU7oxU/s1600/faberge-eggs7.jpg)


End file.
